


these beautiful birds, radiantly regenerate

by scratchienails



Category: Code Geass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Minor Kouzuki Kallen/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia, Minor Kururugi Suzaku/Lelouch Lamperouge | Lelouch vi Britannia, Soulmarks, Spoilers for Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2, maybe the real soulmate was the metaphysical concept of god we met along the way, this is a disjointed mess i wrote a long long time ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25704667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scratchienails/pseuds/scratchienails
Summary: A mark, a phoenix, a destiny. It couldn't be any more obvious, right up until it isn't.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	these beautiful birds, radiantly regenerate

**Author's Note:**

> "They will follow, these beautiful birds, radiantly regenerate, blissfully jubilant, spirits elect, into that happy home everlasting to eternity. There the fiend, outcast, importunate, cannot treacherously harm them by his evil."
> 
> I have no idea why I'm posting this.

Twin wings of flame, blazing feathers painted over his clavicle.

His mother says his soulmark is beautiful; the most beautiful she’s ever seen with her glittering amethyst eyes. She smiles when she sees it, secretly. For some reason, it makes him a little uneasy. She knows something he doesn’t. 

He traces the phoenix with his fingers, watching his pale fingers against the bright reds and oranges in the mirror.

Nunnally’s soulmark is also a bird, a dove. It doesn’t interest his mother much, but Lelouch thinks it’s pretty. Whoever Nunnally’s soulmate is, they must be gentle, he decides. Nothing else will do. 

Whoever _his_ soulmate is, however... 

* * *

Then he’s in Japan, abandoned in an unfamiliar land that hates him with a little sister that has no one else to rely on.

And the Prime Minister’s son is a fierce, gallant boy with a smile like the sun and a soul of sparks. Named Suzaku.

Lelouch’s mouth goes a little dry when they meet. It is so very obvious, Lelouch feels like he’s choking on expectations. But he says nothing, and wears all his shirts buttoned up as high as they go. 

Somehow, Kururugi Genbu still seems to know. His eyes stick, sometimes, too long and too discerning, with hard and deliberate consideration. Still, the man says nothing either.

* * *

One day, they’re in the sunflower fields, and Suzaku starts talking about soulmarks. Despite himself, Lelouch is excited, because _this_ is the moment. There’s a grand destiny unfurling for them, he just knows it; a future bright and brilliant.

Grinning, Suzaku pulls Lelouch close and pushes down the shoulder of his _hakama._ Blooming on his shoulder is a soft-petaled flower of pink, fading into lavender and white, with sweet, curling angel wings instead of leaves.

The excitement inside his chest burns up into nothing but ashes, and Lelouch says nothing of the fire-bird branded across his collarbones.

Lelouch is a lot of things, but he’s not _that._ Whoever that flower represents, it isn’t him.

* * *

It’s Euphemia.

He hates her, he _hates_ her, _he hates her—_

* * *

First she takes Suzaku. And now she’s going to take his rebellion too.

She just has to steal this from him too, doesn’t she?

* * *

Black.

White.

Red.

* * *

Twin wings of flame, blazing feathers painted over his clavicle.

His little brother says his soulmark is beautiful; the most beautiful he’s ever seen with his pale lavender eyes. But Rolo frowns when he sees it, secretly. For some reason, it makes Lelouch a little uneasy. Rolo knows something he doesn’t. 

He traces the phoenix with his fingers, watching his pale fingers against the bright reds and oranges in the mirror.

Rolo’s soulmark isn’t a bird, but a chess piece. The black king, bursting with lines of music notes and stars, set right on his heart. Lelouch isn’t sure what to think about it. It seems a little too familiar.

* * *

He wakes up from the dream.

Suzaku.

Rolo.

Oh, he _will ruin them_.

* * *

Soulmates are such a load of bullshit.

* * *

Kallen’s undercover outfit is rather revealing.

He can’t _not_ see it.

Kallen’s chess piece is the trunk of a blazing tree, swathed in purple flames and shining like a torch of liberty. Its roots spin into an intricately beautiful wheel, weaved in black and gold. Something so grand can only represent Zero, not Lelouch. Lelouch does not deserve the devotion painted across Kallen’s back.

She had always been a being of flame and freedom. A phoenix in all but name.

He sheds his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders. 

* * *

A new land, a new home. Exile, again.

He and Kallen could have a future together, when this is all over. He _wants_ a future together.

She’s fire and freedom and courage. Her strength is _almost_ unrivaled, and when the crimson Guren soars, he feels his heart and hopes soaring with it. When she’s by his side, he _almost_ feels like he can do anything.

He can cast aside all his other names and just be Zero for her, for Nunnally, for the Black Knights, for the world they will build.

* * *

Suzaku takes Kallen away. Because of course he does. He’s not Lelouch’s soulmate or his knight or his phoenix, but apparently no one else is allowed to be either. 

But Lelouch will get her back. He knows it. Destiny and all.

* * *

Shirley is lying in a pool in her own blood, blazing auburn hair spread out like wings, her lips pale but still moving. “No matter how many times I was reborn, I kept falling in love with you.”

Shirley shows him the mark carved into her chest: a black chess piece, a _king_ , standing proud and surrounded by falling books and splattered ink. In the moment, there’s nothing in the world he hates the sight of more. The red of blood washes it away soon, even as he desperately tries to stifle the bleeding. 

Lelouch screams as she dies.

* * *

C.C. is gone, reborn as someone he doesn’t really recognize. She keeps checking her forehead in the mirror, lifting her bangs and frowning at her reflection. She probably doesn't recognize the mark there, just like she doesn't recognize him or anything else.

Still, he listens to her when she says _someone special,_ and thinks of the phoenix on skin. It has to mean something more than this. Something more than dead or missing or gone almost lovers. Something more than hate and mistakes and lies.

He calls Suzaku and tries to trust one more time.

It doesn't go well.

* * *

“Even if it was a lie, you gave me a life, a future.” Rolo is struggling with each breath, pallid and almost blue. “Because of you, I was reborn as a human being.” With a quivering hand, Rolo grips his heart, his mark, in his last moments with a smile too bright for death. 

His final flight had been the most brilliant thing Lelouch had ever seen. Lelouch’s last march will be just as blazing.

* * *

Suzaku and C.C. come for him, and he’s not surprised. They've betrayed or left him before, just like everybody else in his life, but none of that matters anymore. Even with them both right there, in reality, he's in this alone. A life and death of solitude.

He wants tomorrow, at least for them and everybody else. Even if he has no future, destiny awaits.

* * *

“Please.” Kallen begs, but he cannot answer her. He will not drag this glorious wilding from the sky.

* * *

He is not meant to see the mark scorched onto Suzaku’s shoulder. But Suzaku is unconscious and stripped, lying still and bandaged in the hospital bed. He had not escaped Kallen’s wrath unscathed.

The lovely flower of their childhood has been burned away by furious red, the hellish tower of a chess piece rising from its ashes. Thorny brambles twist around it like a crown of pain, demonic wings curving around like poison ivy leaves.

It’s horrible and hideous and Lelouch weeps at the sight of it. He never wanted this, not this way.

* * *

“I am reborn.” Suzaku whispers as Lelouch dies, and Lelouch’s whole being burns to dust in the arms of ~~his~~ phoenix.

* * *

The prisoner’s garb he’s dressed in reveals his collar for everyone to see. Except, the only thing _to_ see is the mark of his Code, simplistic and red, bare and raw compared to the gorgeous fire-bird he once carried with him. 

* * *

“I feel like I’ve been reborn.” C.C. hums. “So this is what starting a new life feels like.”

Not for the first time, L.L. wonders about her soulmark. This time, when he asks, she answers.

“It was here.” She taps her brow, her smile teasing. “And it was hideous too. A big flaming bird, right on my forehead.”


End file.
